Alaska COVID-19 Data Summary: June 28, 2021

COVID-19 DATA SUMMARY – June 28, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. June 25-27

OVERVIEW – 91 new cases | 0 deaths| 11 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: low | 50% of Alaskans 12+ vaccinated

TAKE ACTION – Choosing to get vaccinated is the single most important action you can take to protect yourself and your community and to reopen our economy. Learn more about the CDC’s recommendations for fully vaccinated people at www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html.

VACCINATIONS – 55% of Alaskans age 12 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose.

50% of Alaskans 12 and older have been fully vaccinated. The higher the vaccination rate, the more protected community members are from COVID-19. See below for percentages of all fully vaccinated Alaskans age 12 and older by region:

• Juneau Region: 71%
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 66%
• YK-Delta Region: 65%
• Southwest Region: 60%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 59%
• Northwest Region: 54%
• Anchorage Region: 52%
• Other Interior Region: 51%
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 44%
• Kenai Peninsula Region: 43%
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 34%

For more information about vaccines, visit covidvax.alaska.gov.

UPCOMING CHANGES TO VACCINE DATA:  To improve the quality of the COVID-19 data, this week changes are being made to how community level vaccination rates are calculated for Homer and Kodiak, which will go live on Wednesday, June 30.  Vaccination counts for Homer and Kodiak Alaska residents have been inflated because vaccinated residents from surrounding communities have been included in those towns instead of the community where they physically reside.  Addresses are self-reported by persons being vaccinated, and many people report their mailing address instead of where they physically live.  To address this issue, we are aggregating surrounding areas that share postal service locations or zip codes to better reflect an appropriate population size.  

The Homer Area has been modified to include not only the city of Homer and Diamond Ridge Census Designated Places (CDP), but to also include Fritz Creek CDP.  With these additional areas included, the vaccination rate changes from 79% to 61%.  We have also changed “Kodiak city” to “Kodiak Road System” and aggregated Kodiak city with Chiniak CDP, Kodiak Station CDP, Mill Bay CDP, and Womens Bay CDP.  Kodiak city was 116% vaccinated and now Kodiak Road System will show 55% vaccinated, which is a more accurate representation of vaccination rates in those areas.  Please note that we are constantly working to improve data quality, so it is always important to interpret this data as preliminary and subject to change.  

CASES – DHSS today announced 91 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska over the past three days:

• June 25 - 31 residents, 2 nonresidents
• June 26 - 34 residents, 6 nonresidents
• June 27 - 16 residents, 2 nonresidents

81 total residents in: Anchorage (39), Hooper Bay (14), Bethel Census Area (4), Palmer (4), Wasilla (4), Eagle River (3), Juneau (2), Nome Census Area (2), North Slope Borough (2), Sitka (2), and one each in Bethel, Homer, Kenai, Northwest Arctic Borough, and Unalaska. 

Ten new nonresident cases were identified in:

• Unalaska: four in seafood industry
• Anchorage:  one with purpose "other", two with purpose under investigation
• Fairbanks: two with purpose oil 
• Wasilla: one with purpose "other"

One resident case and nine nonresident cases were added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 68,300 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,887.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,606 resident hospitalizations and 367 resident deaths, with no new hospitalizations and no new resident deaths reported. 

There are currently 11 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and no additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 19 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Four of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 1.3%.

TESTING – A total of 2,176,379 tests have been conducted, with 16,051 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 1.16%.

ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is low at 4.22 cases per 100,000. One region of Alaska is in high alert status with widespread community transmission; one region is at intermediate alert status with moderate transmission; and nine regions are at low alert with minimal transmission.

High (>10 cases/100,000)

• YK-Delta Region: 23.10 cases per 100,000

Intermediate (>5-10 cases/100,000)

• Anchorage Municipality: 5.10 cases per 100,000

Low (0-5 cases/100,000)

• Northwest Region: 4.50 cases per 100,000
• Other Interior Region: 4.30 cases per 100,000
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 3.50 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 3.30 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 3.20 cases per 100,000
• Southwest Region: 2.80 cases per 100,000
• Kenai Peninsula Borough: 1.70 cases per 100,000
• Juneau City and Borough: 1.60 cases per 100,000
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 1.20 cases per 100,000

Notes: Reports are received electronically, by phone and by fax. Cases are verified, redundancies are eliminated and then cases are entered into the data system that feeds into Alaska’s Coronavirus Response Hub. When there is a high number of reports being received, this may cause delays in getting reports entered and counted. Personnel continue to focus on the effort to process and count reports and minimize the delay from receipt to posting on the hub.

There is a lag between cases being reported on the DHSS data dashboard and what local communities report. Each case is an individual person even if they are tested multiple times. Total tests are a not a count of unique individuals tested and includes both positive and negative results. The current number of hospitalized patients represents more real-time data compared to the cumulative total hospitalizations. Current hospitalizations are reported for all facilities, not just general acute care and critical access facilities, as is the default on the dashboard. Total number of hospital beds available fluctuate daily as the number of available hospital staff changes. All data reported in real-time, on a daily basis, should be considered preliminary and subject to change. To view more data visit data.coronavirus.alaska.gov; weekly and daily case summaries are archived at dhss.alaska.gov/dph/Epi/id/Pages/COVID-19/communications.aspx#updates.